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If you listen to one thing today …

Champion NattyJungle Souljah

… make sure you listen to this incredible Congo Natty tribute by Uncle Dugs. All junglist crew!

Tracklisting:

01. Rebel MC Feat Tenor Fly – Comin On Strong
02. Rebel MC Feat Tenor Fly – The Wickedest Sound (Don Gorgon Mix)
03. Rebel MC Feat Little T – Rich Ah Getting Richer (B-Line Ruffneck Mix)
04. Rebel MC Feat Tenor Fly & Barrington Levy – Tribal Base (Foundation Mix)
05. Rebel MC + Prince Lincoln Thompson – Humanity (Bass Till Your Head Buss Mix)
06. Rebel MC + Prince Lincoln Thompson – I Can’t Get No Sleep (Jungle Fever Mix)
07. X Project – Walking In The Air (Mix A1)
08. X Project – Inah Sound
09. Conquering Lion – Phenomenon 1 (Catch The Fever Mix)
10. X Project – Dub Plate Special (Ruff Cut)
11. Conquering Lion – Code Red (Wild Apache Mix)
12. Blackstar – Kunte Kinte
13. Blackstar Feat Top Cat – Champion Dj (Blueprint Mix)
14. Conquering Lion – Stamina
15. Rebel MC Feat Junior Reid – Banana Boat Man (Original Mix)
16. X Project – Jah Sunshine
17. Barrington Levy & Beenie Man – Under Me Sensi (Jungle Spliff) (X Project Remix)
18. Conquering Lion Feat Beenie Man – Rastaman (Original Dubplate Version)
19. Blackstar Feat Sweetie Irie – Get Wild (Knowledge & Wisdom Mix)
20. Tribe Of Issachar Feat Peter Bouncer – Junglist Pt2
21. Conquering Lion Feat Beenie Man – Code Black (Remix)
22. Tribe Of Issachar Feat Peter Bouncer – Fever (The Revolution Has Now Begun)
23. Lion Of Judah Feat Bounty Hunter – Emporer Selassie I (King Of Kings)
24. Tribe Of Issachar – Wardance Millennium (Original Dubplate)
25. Tribe Of Issachar Feat Top Cat – His Imperial Majesty (Original Dubplate)
26. Congo Natty Feat Top Cat – Original Sess (Police In Helicopter)

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Girdler Synthetic’s Lab 4 Tribute – A Must Listen!

clapham junctionrolling road

What are you doing right now?

Well, whatever it is, stop it. Right. This. Second.

And go listen to the new Lab 4 tribute by Girdler Synthetic, the Soundcloud player of which I have helpfully embedded above. It’s two hours of wall-to-wall amazing tunes from Lab 4, who were pretty much my favorite hard trance act of all time. I first encountered Lab 4, aged 17, at the Pendragon Summer Solstice rave in Brixton Academy, and I was absolutely blown away by the power of tunes like ‘XL6’, ‘Genetik Response’, and ‘Reformation’ (to be fair, there was a little, um, assistance in the process 😉 ), and I must have seen them at least a dozen more times over the years after that, at places like The Drome, Heaven, The Astoria, The Fridge, Camden Palace, etc, and every single time they rocked it good, and they rocked it hard, the intensity and the tempo building and building into a crescendo of fist-pumping, teeth-clenching madness. Somehow their genius transcended normal scene boundaries, with their sets destroying crusties, Antipodeans, and northern furry-booted donkmeisters with equal efficiency.

Damn, they were good.

In fact, I love them so much I was planning on doing my own tribute, but I suppose I don’t have to now!

I’ve also made a cue file, for anyone else who wants to split up this mix, which you can grab here.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

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Saturday Mix Round-Up: Luke Vibert, Butterz, Special Request, and more!

jellyfish

It’s Saturday! Here are a few mixes that I’ve enjoyed recently on Soundcloud (imo, Soundcloud is now hands-down the best music service on the net):

First up, is Fact Mix 362, Special Request’s mix for the Fact mix series, which charts a course through rave sounds, from old to new. Special Request is a new(ish) alias of long-time house producer Paul Woolford, covering some fresh house interpretations of the old skool hardcore sound. Good fun!

Next up is ‘Amenarchy’, an absolutely blazing new skool jungle mix from San Diego’s DJ Rebellion; I found this on the always excellent RaggaJungle.biz site. Some absolutely murderous breaks and basslines on this – I really really enjoyed this mix, and you will too.

Elijah and Skilliam from Butterz have been enthusiastically driving the grime renaissance over the last few years through their label, blogs, radio shows, and club gigs, and, of course, their mixes. Their latest one, a Valentines special for the Special Request mix series, showcases the more romantic side of grime (well, everything is relative) … featuring tracks from Ruff Sqwad, Wiley, Dizzee Rascal, and many more. I thought it was great – an excellent selection of quality tunes, both old and new. If you liked my Drop The Hammer 8 then you’ll dig this.

Staying on a grimey tip, off the back of a recommendation from Mark Jenkins of Fried My Little Brain I discovered this excellent mix by Slackk. Slackk has a unique style, mashing together grime sounds with house rhythms to make a unique London dance sound, all clicks, squawks, and icy cold blasts of Eskibass.

Last but very much not least is this live recording of Luke Vibert’s set at Vinyl Pimp’s Hackney shop last Saturday night in conjunction with Discogs. I’ve been good friends with Man Hon Luk, the Vinyl Pimp himself, for over ten years and it’s really really cool to see his business doing new and exciting things. Sadly I wasn’t able to make it to the party last weekend because my little girl was sick, but just listen to this set – listen to it! A thing of true beauty. If you’re on Facebook you can see an album of photos of the night right here.

Oh yeah, and if you’re a vinyl junkie and you have a Discogs wants list, click here to see what the Vinyl Pimp has in stock for you!

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Girdler Synthetic’s Nuw Idol Tribute

WellWicked Records

The one and only Girdler Synthetic is back with a bang, kicking off his 2013 sets with a tribute to minor trance deity Nüw Idol, aka Michel Spiegel. This has only just gotten uploaded to the Penguin Conspiracy Soundcloud page, so it’s fresh, fresh, fresh!

Nuw Idol was one of my favorite trance producers back in the late 90’s/early 00’s. I loved his style of driving, hypnotic dance music – real trance music, not the arpeggiated candyfloss bullshit greedy schlockmeisters were churning out by the bucket load and, in the process, ruining the good name of trance.

5 minute breakdowns? Fuck that, Nuw Idol was there to get you dancing! His WellWicked Records pretty much always came up with the goods, which is why it’s so nice to have all of his finest tunes smooshed together in one cd’s worth of hard, euphoric joy. Of course, as ever with Girdler Synthetic’s mixes, this is a suitable tribute, expertly mixed and beautifully programmed.

Grab it, grab it now.

Or, um, stream it, stream it now …

Tracklisting:

01. Nüw Idol – Wicca – WellWicked
02. Nüw Idol – The Embrace – WellWicked
03. Nüw Idol – Touch The Lazer – WellWicked
04. Nüw Idol – Polly’s Pharmacy – WellWicked
05. Nüw Idol & Oberon – Point Of Entry – WellWicked
06. Nüw Idol – Sin – WellWicked
07. Nüw Idol – WOW – WellWicked
08. Nüw Idol & Gianni – The Gates Of Time – WellWicked
09. Nüw Idol – Satann – WellWicked
10. Nüw Idol – Kick Drum Domination – WellWicked
11. Nüw Idol – My Liberation – WellWicked
12. Nüw Idol – Life Is The Poison – WellWicked
13. Nüw Idol – The Quickening – WellWicked
14. Nüw Idol & Oberon – Bag Of Trix – WellWicked

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Guest DJ’s: Where are they now? Flip, Mejle, and Meke edition

London tower blocks
the view from my train home, in between Waterloo and Vauxhall

Happy Friday!

Hope you are enjoying the most recent fruits of my mixing labors: Eurotrash 4 (shout to the mighty Watchtower for featuring it yesterday!) and my acid mix for 7D The Seven Dimensions of Euphoria (split versions going live today).

As it’s Friday, I thought that I would catch up with new projects from three of the previous guest dj’s on Sonicrampage: Flip, Mejle, and Meke.

First up is Flip, whose 2005 Mentasm mix was featured back in early 2011 (and was subsequently highly praised by Plasmadancer on his invaluable Thank You For The Horse blog). Recently Eryk Orpheus uploaded his collaboration with Flip, The Gatekeeper, to his Soundcloud, and, well, it’s pretty epic stuff, if you like mental freeform hardcore. Ave it!

Next, on a (very) different note, is Denmark’s Mejle, the most recent guest dj to grace this illustrious collection of pixels that I call my blog. His guest mix last month was an excellent journey through many flavors of bass music, and this month he is back with another sweet selection, bashing through techno, electro, and dubstep with tunes from producers like Boddika, Mala, Icicle, and Trevino (amongst others).

Finally, Finland’s DJ Meke has returned with In Melody We Trust, a hard trance collaboration with Helsinki’s DJ Neon. Mining that early 00’s hard trance sound, if you love sharp melodies and hard kicks, it’s for you. Meke, has, of course, already appeared three times on Sonicrampage, with his mixes Nostrum tribute Nostrumo, his Old School Hardtrancers II mix in collaboration with Hamburg’s DJ Yoko, and his cheesey-yet-awesome old skool gabba mix Happy New Yearave.

Also, Meke’s collaboration with Sam Hard recently appeared on the (FREE!) Freeformatted compilation album. Go grab it!

So there you go, loads to listen to over the weekend! Have a good one …

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New Girdler Synthetic mix: tribute to Pendragon & Escape From Samsara

The one and only Girdler Synthetic is back with another awesome hard trance tribute mix, this time to the amazing Pendragon and Escape From Samsara club nights that were such a big part of the London scene back in the day. Check it out!

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Freeform Exposed! (Plus some other bits of freeform news)

freeform exposed

A few bits of freeform news for you …

First up, those of you who enjoyed Beezee’s recent guest mix, The Canticle of the Monomyth, as reviewed so well on Thank You For The Horse, will be very pleased to know that he has recently posted a new mix, Kali, his contribution to the Freeformaniacs show. Go check it out!

Secondly, the line-up for the second I Love Hard Beats event has been announced. Sadly, I’m not playing, like I had tentatively announced before – in any case, it looks pretty immense – go here to see the line up.

Finally, the man like Shanty has unveiled his newest freeform project – Electrode, which has debuted with a free album called Freeform Exposed. Freeform Exposed is a downloadable three cd set, including two unmixed discs of new and exclusive tracks, as well as a dj mix by Shanty. Each disc will be available in both wav and 320 kbs mp3, and you can head over to the Electronica Exposed site right now to get the dj mix (the unmixed sets are forthcoming). Although free, Shanty has asked for donations to cover the cost of professionally mastering the tunes, so it’s worth sending him some money as a thank you for the album (as well as, more broadly, all the work he has done for the freeform scene over the years). I did!

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More Finrg goodness

Berlin traffic lights

For those of you who enjoyed Rampage Turbo 10, here are a few other Finrg tributes for you to check out; first up is this mix by Rebuild Music’s Thumpa:

Secondly, a mix by the Finnish scene’s boy wonder, Substanced:

Make sure to check out his new album When The World Collapses!

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Sunday listen: T_! – Nominated


T_! – “NOMINATED” – 4 decks by T_macabre

Happy Sunday!

Hope your weekend has been good – here’s a mix that was sent through to me yesterday that I’m very happy to post about. It’s called Nominated and it’s a massive 4-deck mix of all kinds of dubstep/grime goodies from T_! of Macabre Unit. I was a bit dubious when I first saw the tracklisting, as even though it has lots and lots and lots of good tunes, I thought that fitting that many tunes into 77 minutes would be overkill. I mean, sure I’m someone with a short attention span when it cames to mixing, but even I have my limits. Fortunately, I was wrong! He’s done an excellent job of weaving the massive number of tracks into the mix in a way that is subtle yet compelling, with the tracks floating in and out nicely.

It’s definitely not the OCD dropfest I halfway feared!

Another nice feature to the mix is that although it is mostly eyes down dubstep, he’s slipped in enough grime flourishes to freshen up the vibe periodically so it’s not all introspective gloom (although gloomy dungeon sound dubstep is of course something I love) – overall, the mix has a really good balance of vibes throughout. I also enjoyed the mixture of fresh dubs and venerable classics – too often with online mixes people just try to show off the fact that they have a lot of dubplates, which frankly I’ve never cared much about. After all, ‘new’ is not a synonym for ‘good’. I’d rather listen to old, good tunes intelligently put together than a bunch of new crap piled up thoughtlessly. As for the mixing, well, obviously it’s really fucking good – you have to have a lot of confidence in your mixing ability to try to pull off a four deck mix, and he’s definitely nailed it. I like it a lot. You will too. Promise.

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Excellent New Matty G Mix to Download

Matty G

If you enjoyed last year’s Hang Ten, my tribute to Californian dubstep dj/producer and king of the bumping 808 bass, Matty G, well, then, you’ll love this excellent new guest mix that he’s just dropped for KMag. From the rough to the smooth, it’s really really tasty stuff, including loads of dubplates (some of which like ‘Jam Like A Tek’ and ‘Just Hit Me’ are amongst the best stuff he’s done, imo). Plus it includes an interview with the man himself. Bonus!

What more could you want?!?

Oh, yeah, a cue file.

Well, lucky for you, I’ve already done one for my own pleasure, and I’m more than happy to share it with you; if you want to get the cue file, I’ve stuck it up on my server here:

matty-g-kmag-mix

Tracklisting:

01. Matty G – R&B Style
02. Grand Puba – Get It (Caspa’s 80Eighties Remix)
03. Matty G – Ooohhh Baby
04. Matty G & Ugene – Baby Yeah
05. Matty G & Roommate – Caetano
06. The Others & Distinction – DISKO
07. Matty G – True Soul
08. Guido – Korg Back
09. Willie Hutch – I Choose You (Matty G Refix)
10. 12th Planet & Antiserum – Purple & Gold
11. Matty G – Funky Fresh
12. Caspa – Itchy & Scratchy
13. J:Kenzo – Ruffhouse
14. Tes La Rok – Ignition VIP
15. Matty G & Konfusion – Styles & Styles
16. Matty G – Just Hit Me
17. Matty G – Turf Warz
18. The Others & Trolley Snatcha – Break Your Neck feat. Dread MC
19. Matty G – My 808’s
20. Guido – Mad Sax
21. J:Kenzo – Stomp
22. Matty G – Keepin’ It Real
23. Matty G – Cold Break Ill
24. Matty G & Ugene – Back To The Bay
25. Matty G – Soundtrap
26. Sub Scape – Screw Up (Matty G Remix)
27. Matty G – Jam Like A Tek
28. Mavado – Gangsta 4 Life (Coki Remix)
29. Matty G – Madeira